Richard Good
Do you remember geometry lessons at school? The formula for measuring the circumference of a circle for example?
c=πr2
If you know the radius of your circle, you can work out the circumference in a flash using that formula. And if measuring the circumferences of circles is your thing, it’s a handy trick to know. Wave goodbye to all that measuring-circular-objects-with-a-piece-of-string misery!
The rules of grammar are the language learner’s equivalent of geometrical formulae.
We may begin learning by cumulating catchphrases. But trying to memorize all the possible sentences you might ever want to use is no more reasonable than measuring all the circular objects in the world with a piece of string.
At some stage we’re going to have to learn the grammar. The only question is how.
How we learn grammar
How humans learn grammar is a vast field of academic debate in itself. What is certain is that when we learn our first language we’re capable of picking up extremely complex rules of grammar without ever being conscious of what those rule are.
We might hope that it will be the same for a second language, and there is indeed a lot that we’ll pick up unconsciously just by listening and observing.
But things aren’t quite as straightforward as that. Our native language will already have engrained its own set of rules in our minds, and wiping that slate clean can turn out to be trickier than we imagine. And we may simply not notice the new rules without having them pointed out to us.
So a little bit of gentle forcing is required. Let’s take an example.
Before and after
A good way into grammar is to try expressing yourself and seeing where you get stuck.
Try describing your daily routines, thinking in terms of actions which follow on from each other. For example two actions that you do yourself:
I brush my teeth before having breakfast.
After brushing my teeth, I take a shower.
And then mix up things, between activities you do yourself and thing that are going on around you.
I prepare my notes before the meeting begins.
After the meeting ends I telephone my colleagues.
Now let’s look at how you might express these thoughts in French. Firstly when I am doing both the actions:
Je me brosse les dents avant de prendre mon petit déjeuner.
Après m’être brossé les dents, je prends une douche.
We can see that when the subject is the same person for two consecutive actions, the subordinate verb is in the infinitive. If we carry out an action before another action it’s:
avant de + l’infinitif
For after it’s:
après + l’infinitif passé
Now let’s look at mixing up things that you do with activities that are going on around you:
Je prépare mes notes avant le début de la réunion.
Après la réunion, je téléphone à mes collègues.
Here we’ve got a bit of a curve ball.
Because while in English we are very happy using two verbs (I prepare my notes before the meeting begins), in French we are more likely to look for a noun to describe the subordinate action.
This is not a rigid rule (we can also use nouns for the subordinate action in English and verbs for the subordinate action in French), but it’s a very strong tendency.
If there is no noun we can use as a substitute, or if we simply prefer to use a second verb, it will have to be in the subjunctive after avant que. We can optionally add a ne, especially when we’re talking about something we don’t want to happen:
Bois ton café avant qu’il ne refroidisse.
Subjunctives are used for “the idea of an action”, not the action itself. But if the action has already happened, it no long has that ethereal nature, so we use the indicative:
Après que les vendanges seront passées, le vin sera mis en cuve.
Whoa up a bit
At this point it is quite possible you maybe thinking of going back to that Learn French in 30 days without any grammar advert you saw. But please just stick around a little bit longer and keep in mind two things:
- the explanations of grammar are often more complicated than simply doing the right thing
- time spent working on reusable grammar rules is much more valuable than time spent on single use catch phrases
So to sum up where we are:
- When wanting to juxtapose two actions, French is very different from English, so we’re going to have to curb our natural instincts
- When the person doing the two actions is the same, the subsidiary action will be in the infinitive
- When there are two different people doing the actions, think whether a noun noun can be used to describe the subsidiary action instead of a verb
- If you do use a verb for the subsidiary action, avant que takes the subjunctive, while après que takes the indicative
And this is probably as much as it’s reasonable to try to bank in one go.
Banking it
The human brain is pretty good at learning rules based on models. So a good first step for banking this knowledge is to memorise six model sentences around the six types of example above:
Je me brosse les dents avant de prendre mon petit déjeuner.
Après m’être brossé les dents, je prends une douche.
Je prépare mes notes avant le début de la réunion.
Après la réunion, je téléphone à mes collègues.
Bois ton café avant qu’il ne refroidisse.
Après que les vendanges seront passées, le vin sera mis en cuve.
If you repeat those sentences to yourself, you’ll be training your brain to apply those rules in other situations. Watch out for the words avant and après in your reading or listening and note how they are being used. Each act of noticing will reinforce the rules.
What you’ should’ll then find is that when confronted with similar situations, you’ll instinctively apply your newly acquired rules.
Conclusion
We used before and after sequences here as just an example of how we can learn grammar. Keep in mind that there aren’t that many rules to learn – and that mastering those rules is just about the most valuable activity there is for raising your game. The lessons on the French Classes website will provide you with much more grist to the mill.
